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by Gina Trapani

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Last month I was surfing the collaboratively-edited free encyclopedia Wikipedia, as I'm wont to do, and I came across a typo. I've always been only a Wikipedia reader, never a Wikipedia editor. Over the years, Wikipedia has greatly benefitted me with scads of information about every topic under the sun. However, the prospect of editing the thing seemed scary and mysterious - I mean, who are these people anyway? How does one become an encyclopedia editor? - but there it was, a big honkin' typo staring at me. I was suddenly seized by the responsibility - obligation, really - to fix it. So I took the plunge and hit that edit button.

So began my love affair with editing Wikipedia. It turns out editing an article isn't scary at all. It's easy, surprisingly satisfying and can become obsessively addictive. If you've always wondered who edits Wikipedia and how it's done, you're in the right place. Today we'll go over how to contribute to Wikipedia and give back to the community which offers so much by way of free information.

The Basics

Wikipedia is an editable web site powered by a free software called MediaWiki. MediaWiki (which is an amazing package for personal wiki installations, by the way) allows anyone to edit any page within the wiki. To edit a page, you simply click on the edit button at the top of a page, here:

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The text of the page will be displayed inside an editable textarea. You'll see some square brackets and other formatting markup; we'll go over that in a minute. For a simple typo, you can just change the word that's misspelled. To preview your changes without saving them, you can hit the "Show Preview" button. (I highly recommend doing this first, even for a little typo correction.) When you're satisfied with your changes, press the "Save this Page" button. Your changes will appear immediately.

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Before you hit the Save button for the first time, enter a line summarizing it. Are you deleting spam? Linking text that should've been linked but wasn't? Adding a section? Say so in the Summary field.

Also know that it's good practice to check off the "minor edit" button for, um, minor edits. A typo or formatting correction or rearranging of existing text all qualify as minor edits. (Note: you must be logged in to see the minor edit checkbox. See the "Your Wikipedia user page" section for more info.)

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Once you save the page, your change will be noted in Wikipedia's Recent Changes which lists the thousands of Wikipedia edits that happen per hour. Also, the change will be listed in the History section of that particular page. Any revisions can be rolled back and diff'ed against other versions of a page. That's the beauty of Wikipedia: anything can be done and undone and corrected and added to realtime, and there are full logs of all of the activity, time-stamped and available for everyone to view and review. Don't think your change will go unnoticed, because it won't. The place is crawliing with readers and writers and your change will be swept away immediately if it's not correct or legit.

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The rate of content change on Wikipedia is astounding, almost real-time as news breaks. For example, earlier this week, when WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes publicly acknowledged she's in a same-sex relationship with her former assistant coach, I headed over to Swoopes' Wikipedia entry to add that notable information about her, only to find it had already been added. Some opinionated and homophobic commentary had also already been added and deleted. This was literally an hour or so after the story broke. Wikipedians are quick on the draw. Check out the change history on Swoopes' Wikipedia page here to see the activity.

To read more about editing a page, see Wikipedia's How to edit a page entry. Then, to give it a try yourself, head over to the Sandbox. This is a special page set up for new Wikipedia editors who want to practice - but not on a real article.

Formatting and linking conventions

Links and formatting within an article is acheived using special Wikipedia markup. For example, a section header is denoted with equal signs, like so:

Just the facts, ma'am

Always use a neutral point of view, as Wikipedia is not a place to promote points of view. Write as if the information is a non-judgmental news article.

Cite your sources so others can check and extend your work. Most Wikipedia articles currently lack good references, and this contributes to Wikipedia's single greatest criticism
that it is not a reliable source. Please help by researching online and print resources to find references for the article you are working on, then cite them in proper form, and consider in-text citation for contentious facts.

At first writing like a reporter may feel awkward to non-journalists, but presenting cited facts and not opinion is core to making Wikipedia a legitimate source. Unfounded opinion or subjective observations in an entry will be deleted. See the Guide to writing better articles at Wikipedia for tips and advice for improving a Wikipedia article.

Your Wikipedia user page

Once you get started editing Wikipedia, consider creating a Wikipedia user account. A user account is your community identity, which will be listed next to your changes, and in turn will list all the edits you've made throughout the site in one place.

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Additionally, logged in users have access to advanced preferences and editing options. While anonymous changes are welcome, in general, you and your changes will be recognized within the Wikipedia community only if you have a user account. A history of worthy edits will build your reputation as a Wikipedian. See more about user accounts at the Why create an account? page.

Everyone's an expert on something; Wikipedia aggregates that expertise and makes it available to everyone.

Be bold but not reckless

Wikipedia's advice to editors is be bold but don't be reckless. (Pretty good life advice, as well.) The introduction to Wikipedia page says it best:

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Don't be afraid to edit pages on Wikipedia
anyone can edit, and we encourage users to be bold...but don't be reckless! Find something that can be improved, either in content, grammar or formatting, then fix it. Worried about breaking Wikipedia? Don't be: it can always be fixed or improved later. So go ahead, edit an article and help make Wikipedia the best source of information
on the Internet!

So poke around and be bold, but not reckless. You never know what stray facts you may have rattling around in your head that might benefit everyone in a Wikipedia article.